Abundance (Klein and Thompson book)
Based on Wikipedia: Abundance (Klein and Thompson book)
In March 2025, a book landed on the bestseller lists that sought to diagnose the most painful malady of modern American life: the inability to build. Abundance, co-authored by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, did not merely list the symptoms—skyrocketing housing costs, crumbling bridges, and a climate crisis accelerating unchecked—it proposed a radical surgery for the patient. The operation was simple in concept but terrifying in its implications for the status quo: stop trying to perfect every project before it begins, and start building things that make lives better, even if they are imperfect. Published by Avid Reader Press just as the political landscape of the United States seemed frozen in a gridlock of mutual exhaustion, the book argued that the very institutions designed to protect the public from harm had evolved into engines of stagnation. It became a New York Times Bestseller not because it offered a comforting lie, but because it named the silence that has filled American cities for half a century.
The premise is stark and deliberately provocative. Klein and Thompson, writing in an era where political discourse had fractured into two opposing camps—one obsessed with procedural purity and the other with anti-government rage—identified a third way that had gone unexplored: supply-side progressivism. They argued that since the 1970s, American liberalism has suffered from a fatal case of NIMBYism disguised as environmental or social justice. The book posits that liberals have become so skilled at blocking "bad" development—factories with dirty smokestacks, apartments in quiet neighborhoods, highways cutting through historic districts—that they have forgotten how to champion "good" development. The result is a paralysis where the desire for perfect outcomes kills all possibilities of any outcome.
"Liberals have been more concerned with blocking bad economic development than promoting good development since the 1970s."
This thesis did not emerge from a vacuum. It was the culmination of years of intellectual cross-pollination between two of the most prominent journalists of their generation. At the time of publication, Klein was a defining voice for The New York Times, while Thompson held court at The Atlantic. Their collaboration was born out of a shared frustration with the "Seattle process," a term they used to describe the agonizingly slow, consensus-driven political machinery that prioritizes endless meetings over tangible results. The book's intellectual seeds were planted even earlier, in January 2022, when Thompson published an essay in The Atlantic that first outlined these fraying threads of American governance. That essay became a rallying cry for a movement that would eventually spend over $120 million to institutionalize its ideas.
The authors' partnership was built on the friction between their distinct worldviews. In interviews following the book's release, Thompson admitted he felt "more comfortable starting with economics or technology," viewing progress through the lens of engineering and market dynamics. Klein, conversely, brought a perspective "versed in modern politics and political history," focused on the coalitions and power structures that either enable or thwart those technologies. This tension was not a weakness but the book's engine. It allowed them to argue that the regulatory environment in many liberal cities, while well-intentioned, had become a stranglehold on human potential. They traced how Democrats, over decades, had increasingly favored stasis over growth, backing rigid zoning regulations, enforcing strict environmental laws without nuance, and attaching expensive, time-consuming requirements to public infrastructure spending.
The consequences of this philosophy are not abstract economic statistics; they are visible in the empty lots where housing should be, in the traffic jams that choke urban arteries, and in the energy grids that fail to keep pace with demand. Klein and Thompson argue that America is currently trapped between a progressive movement too afraid of the side effects of growth and a conservative movement allergic to any form of government intervention. This deadlock has created a vacuum filled by the "socialist left," which promises redistribution without production, and the "populist-authoritarian right," which promises destruction rather than creation. The "abundance agenda" they propose is designed to break this cycle by initiating new economic conditions that make both extremes less appealing.
The book's reception was as divided as the political landscape it sought to reshape. It was not a universal paean; critics dissected it with the same rigor they applied to any high-stakes policy document. Henry Grabar of Slate praised the work for being "unabashed in synthesizing good ideas," calling it an essential vision of "a 'liberalism that builds'." For Grabar, the book offered a proactive solution to the stagnation plaguing liberal governance, particularly in blue states where the paradox of wanting change while blocking every mechanism of change was most acute. However, even his praise came with a caveat: he noted that the authors provided remarkably little criticism of the second Trump administration, suggesting a blind spot regarding the political realities of right-wing populism.
Benjamin Wallace-Wells of The New Yorker took a similar middle path, describing Abundance as "fair-minded" and acknowledging its recognition of the trade-offs involved in redesigning government for dynamism. But other voices were far less charitable. Samuel Moyn, writing for The New York Times, questioned the moral foundations of an abundance-driven agenda. He wondered if prioritizing growth would inevitably reinforce a culture of consumption as the primary goal of human existence. More pointedly, he critiqued the authors' viewpoint as sounding occasionally "like the brief of a few elite finance and tech bros in two or three coastal cities." This criticism struck at the heart of the book's demographic blind spot: its focus on high-growth hubs like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, while largely ignoring the struggles of rural America or industrial rust belts.
Eric Levitz of Vox identified a disconnect between the authors' proposals and the immediate political climate of 2025. With pressing issues like the gutting of the federal government and the subversion of court orders dominating the news cycle, Levitz argued that focusing on specific regulatory concerns, such as suburban housing codes, seemed comparatively minor. He criticized the authors for avoiding a clear confrontation with the trade-offs between their policy proposals and traditional progressive ideology, suggesting they were asking progressives to dismantle the very shields that protected vulnerable communities from corporate overreach. Similarly, Noah Kazis of The Guardian noted that while the book possessed "clarity, accessibility, and rigour," it sidestepped the most challenging questions by failing to specify exactly which procedural barriers should be torn down first.
Perhaps the most stinging critique came from the right, though for different reasons than the left. Barton Swaim of The Wall Street Journal accused Klein and Thompson of appearing dismissive of American conservatism, arguing that their ideas were disconnected from the realities of everyday life and ordinary people who feel ignored by coastal elites. But it was Zephyr Teachout in Washington Monthly who posed the most substantive policy challenge. She criticized the book's heavy focus on rolling back zoning restrictions and its support for reforming the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Teachout argued that such deregulation was unlikely to increase housing supply meaningfully without addressing monopolization in the U.S. economy at large. She warned that the authors' arguments could easily be co-opted by a movement seeking deregulation in the style of Ronald Reagan, prioritizing profit over public good and centering their solutions only on a few large American cities while underestimating the negative externalities of rapid development.
Julian E. Zelizer of The New Republic offered a nuanced summary, arguing that the book centered on two distinct themes: policy and politics. On the policy side, he found Klein and Thompson convincing that removing ineffective governmental practices was a priority to renew liberalism. However, on the political side, he remained unconvinced, questioning whether there was actually a viable political constituency for such sweeping changes. He suggested that institutional reform was only part of the solution, and that without a deep shift in cultural values, the "abundance agenda" might remain an intellectual exercise rather than a governing reality.
The movement behind Abundance predates the book by over a decade, revealing that this was not merely an idea born in a writer's room but a concerted effort backed by significant capital and organizational infrastructure. Open Philanthropy had been promoting and funding workshops, conferences, and materials related to these themes since 2015. By 2024, the movement had coalesced around the Abundance Conference, sponsored by Arnold Ventures, Open Philanthropy, and Stand Together. These organizations collectively poured over $120 million into promoting the book's themes via conferences, think tanks, and grants. This financial ecosystem suggests that Abundance was not just a critique of the status quo but a blueprint for a new political economy, backed by donors who saw stagnation as an existential threat to their vision of the future.
The impact of this movement moved quickly from theory to practice. In June 2025, California Governor Gavin Newsom referenced the book and its thesis when he signed two bills aimed at rolling back the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This landmark environmental law had long been cited by developers as a primary bureaucratic obstacle to new housing construction. By streamlining these regulations, Newsom explicitly aligned his administration with the "abundance agenda," signaling a shift in how blue states approached the tension between environmental protection and development. The move was controversial, drawing ire from traditional environmentalists who feared it would lead to unchecked sprawl and ecological damage. Yet, for proponents of the book, it was the first major victory of a new era in governance.
Klein and Thompson remained active participants in this unfolding drama. Klein delivered the keynote address at the Abundance Summit in 2025, articulating the moral urgency of their cause to a crowd of policymakers and activists. His co-author, Thompson, moderated a panel on clean energy infrastructure, connecting the dots between regulatory reform and the urgent need for renewable power generation. They also addressed the Urban Institute's 2025 Housing Policy Conference, bringing their ideas into the halls of traditional policy research. Regional gatherings followed, including a California Abundance Forum in San Francisco that focused specifically on housing affordability and transit development, illustrating how the movement was attempting to localize its global ambitions.
By September 2025, the "Abundance Elected Network" launched with initial involvement from 120 lawmakers across the country. This political wing of the movement sought to translate the book's ideas into legislative action at the state and local levels. Conferences and workshops were organized by a group called the "Abundance Network," founded by Misha Chellam and Zack Rosen, creating a grassroots infrastructure to support politicians who embraced supply-side progressivism. The network was not just about passing laws; it was about changing the language of politics, shifting the debate from "how do we stop this?" to "how do we build this?"
The book's arguments rest on a foundation of several key concepts that readers must understand to grasp its full scope. Progress studies, an intellectual movement focused on understanding and accelerating civilizational progress, serves as the theoretical underpinning. This field challenges the assumption that growth is inherently dangerous or that slowing down is always virtuous. Deregulation, in this context, is not a surrender to corporate power but a surgical removal of red tape that serves no public purpose. The authors also engage with Georgism, an economic philosophy centered on common ownership of land, suggesting that high housing costs are partly a result of the artificial scarcity created by zoning laws.
The book champions mixed-use development and New Urbanism as alternatives to the sprawling suburbs that have come to dominate American geography. It calls for "smart growth," an urban planning philosophy that encourages compact, walkable communities, and transit-oriented development, which prioritizes infrastructure around public transportation hubs. These are not just technical terms; they represent a fundamental reimagining of what American cities should look like and how people should live in them. The authors argue that the current system, driven by "missing middle housing"—the lack of medium-density housing options—forces families into either high-cost apartments or low-density single-family homes, exacerbating inequality and segregation.
The political implications are profound. Abundance suggests that the traditional left-right divide is obsolete when it comes to economic development. The conservative movement's allergy to government intervention has often led to a lack of public investment in infrastructure, while the progressive movement's fear of growth has led to a lack of private and public building. By proposing "supply-side progressivism," Klein and Thompson argue for an ideology that emphasizes increasing the supply of essential goods and services—housing, energy, healthcare—through aggressive government action paired with streamlined regulation.
The timing of the book's release was critical. Published in March 2025, it entered a world where the political center had been eroded by years of gridlock. The authors lamented that America was stuck between a progressive movement too afraid of economic growth and a conservative movement allergic to government intervention. They presented their agenda as a way to diminish the appeal of both the "socialist left" and the "populist-authoritarian right" by delivering tangible results. If liberals could build affordable housing, if they could speed up the construction of renewable energy plants, and if they could modernize infrastructure without years of litigation, perhaps the public would feel less desperate for radical alternatives.
Yet, the book's critics remain a formidable force in the ongoing debate. The fear that an abundance agenda could lead to a culture of unchecked consumption or the degradation of environmental standards is not easily dismissed. The tension between the need for growth and the need for sustainability is real, and Abundance does not offer a magic wand to solve it. Instead, it offers a choice: continue the paralysis that has defined American governance since the 1970s, or embrace a difficult path of trade-offs where progress might sometimes come at the cost of perfection.
The story of Abundance is ultimately a story about ambition. It is about the courage to say that "good enough" is better than nothing, and that the pursuit of a perfect world has often been the enemy of a good one. As California rolled back environmental laws to build housing, as lawmakers joined the Abundance Elected Network, and as millions of dollars flowed into think tanks and conferences, the book's ideas began to take physical form in the real world. Whether this movement will succeed in transforming American governance or whether it will be swallowed by the very political forces it seeks to counter remains an open question. But one thing is certain: the conversation has changed. The silence of stagnation has been broken by a loud, clear demand for abundance.
The legacy of Klein and Thompson's work may not be measured in the number of buildings constructed or laws passed, but in the shift of the Overton window. They forced liberals to confront their own role in creating scarcity and conservatives to acknowledge the necessity of public investment. In doing so, they offered a new language for a new era of American politics—one where the goal is not just to protect what we have, but to build what we need. The road ahead is fraught with challenges, from the entrenched interests of NIMBYs to the complexities of environmental impact. But as the book argues, the cost of inaction is far greater than the risk of experimentation.
In a world where the future often feels like it is slipping away, Abundance stands as a defiant assertion that we can still shape our destiny. It is a call to action for architects, planners, politicians, and citizens to look at their cities and ask not "how do we stop this?" but "what if we built more?" The answer to that question may determine whether the next chapter of American history is one of decline or renewal. As the Abundance Network grows and the movement spreads from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., and beyond, the stakes could not be higher. The choice is between a future of scarcity and a future of abundance. And as Klein and Thompson remind us, that choice starts with the decision to build.